


Brothers in Arms

by Reinette_de_la_Saintonge



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Historical Coincidences, Loss, Mystery, Pensive Simcoe, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 23:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11474331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reinette_de_la_Saintonge/pseuds/Reinette_de_la_Saintonge
Summary: Diverging from TURN's fictionalised account of Simcoe's backstory towards a more geographically accurate version, a young John Graves Simcoe finds himself in an old ruin near his home village of Cotterstock, trying to cope with the death of his father when all of a sudden a mysterious stranger appears. Years later, an adult Simcoe recalls the events of days gone by...





	Brothers in Arms

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short one-off I have contemplated posting for a while now that originates from some research I did into Simcoe for my other fic, "Roses and Thistles". More information on the historical coincidences that inspired this work can be found in the end notes.  
> Enjoy the read!

The boy lay in the soft grass, his limbs outstretched, and watched the clouds chase each other over the sky in great pensiveness. Though every now and then his pale blue eyes followed a particularly interestingly shaped specimen until it would exit his field of vision, his mind was far away from the summer-blue sky over Northamptonshire on the sea just off the Quebecois coast where his father had died aboard his ship.

It had been a week now that the news of his father’s passing had reached them and Mamma was already packing everything. They would move in with his grandparents and leave Cotterstock. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave; after all, he had never lived anywhere else and couldn’t quite imagine it although he had heard marvellous tales of great adventurers whose travels had brought them much further afield than Exeter, so perhaps he should be brave (just as Father had always told him when he had called him his “little soldier”) and see what this new place would bring.

They would leave everything behind, he, Mamma and Percy, their house, their friends (well, if he had any left after what happened today) and this, his secret place.

When Father had been alive, they would sometimes come here together on the back of Father’s great, gentle mare and he would have him all for himself. Father would tell him many interesting things about this place, how three hundred years ago on the site of this little hill had stood a great castle of which today only some crumbling remainders of overgrown stones remained.

Here, the House of York had resided for many years. And Richard, the wicked king who slew his nephews in the Tower had been born here, he remembered one of his father’s tales. And not unlike his father, most York men had died in times of war. He wondered how Duchess Cecily, mother to the tyrant Richard, must have felt when some unfortunate soul brought her the news the Duke of York, her beloved husband, and her equally beloved son, the Earl of Rutland, had fallen in the snowy desert of Wakefield, where the white rose had been dyed red by the Lancastrian soldiers and their merciless swords. Had she wailed like Mamma, inconsolable at her loss?

What had they called this time some three hundred years ago again? Somewhere in the distance he could hear his father’s voice, almost as if he were here with him, his voice only muffled slightly from standing a few feet away from where his son was seated on the slope of the old motte. “The Cousin’s War, one of the most infamous wars in English history…”

The Cousin’s War- it sounded not much different from what happened in these days; France and England, the mightiest countries in the world and neighbours in Europe fighting against each other with one half of the world siding with one, the other half with the other power, or so he had heard from the adult’s hushed conversations when they thought he wasn’t listening.

And in this war, his father, commander of the proud HMS _Pembroke_ , had died somewhere all alone an ocean away.

For the first time, the boy’s eyes filled with tears at the realisation that his Father would never come home again. Until now, he had pretended to be brave for his mother and brother’s sake or simply brushed the thought of his father away, almost as if he were still alive and coming home again soon. But he wouldn’t come home. Not this time.

Had it hurt much? Did his father suffer? Had Father thought of him, Percy and Mamma before he died? What would he have said if he could have said his goodbyes to them? There were so many things he would have liked to ask or tell his father- and now, he was gone without even saying goodbye.

He felt cheated, by his father, by Death, by God, by the Devil, whoever was responsible for all this. Why could other boys still have a father and he couldn’t? Why had, of all men aboard the ship, his father succumbed to pneumonia? Why was life treating him so unfairly? What could a seven-year-old boy have done to deserve such a severe punishment?

Well, he had beaten up stupid Jimmy Mason, who had taunted him for the loss of his father in front of the other boys. Admittedly, he and Jimmy had never gotten along, mostly because Jimmy always teased him for his rather high-pitched voice, causing the other boys to join in and laugh, but today had been the last straw. Insulting his father would be the last thing Jimmy would ever do, he had sworn to himself as he sent the other boy tumbling to the ground with a right hook to the nose. Jimmy’s nose was very likely broken by the sound of it and it was only thanks to his swift retreat to his secret place that his mother hadn’t told him off yet.

Mamma- she didn’t deserve it. Now, she would not only be sad because of Father, but because of _his_ behaviour as well. Had she not told him time and time again that a gentleman always masters his tempers?

Somewhere in the distance, his pony grazed lazily in the shadow of an old tree. If only he could be a happy little pony in the meadow instead of an unhappy little boy whose world was about to crumble like the remainders of the one-time mighty walls of Fotheringhay Castle.

Perhaps this was why King Richard had turned evil. He too had been a little boy when his father died, not much older than himself. Not knowing what to do with himself, he might have started out just like he did, punching stupid playmates before he graduated to killing members of his family for his own benefit. He looked down at the knuckles of his right hand that still bore faint traces of Jimmy Mason’s blood.

Was he turning evil already?

Overwhelmed by his emotions, by the loss, fear and despair he had tried to suppress for an entire week, he cried and cried until time seemed like some vague concept, hours passing like seconds and minutes like decades; he could not tell how long he sat there.

Sobbing, he bolted when all of a sudden a hand touched his shoulder. He turned instinctively.

The hand belonged to a stranger roughly his age in a simple suit of grey he had never seen before.

Now face to face with the mysterious visitor, the other boy's blue eyes seemed wise with greater age than his surprised counterpart’s seven years although he was considerably smaller in stature. Other than that, the similarity struck him almost like a lightning bolt: blue-eyed and extremely fair, almost ghost-like, with reddish hair that curled rebelliously on one head and fell sleekly to shoulder-length on the other, they could have been brothers.

“Why are you crying?”

“Who is asking?”

“A friend.”

“I don’t know you. You don’t live here, do you?”

“No. Not anymore. I did, a long time ago”, the other boy replied patiently, “I have come for a visit. “

 “Where are your parents?”

“They’re close by.”

It was then that he decided interrogating the stranger would come to no fruition. Clearly, the midget enjoyed being mysterious. Not in the mood for playing along and afraid of advancing further on his personal path to darkness though his knuckles itched temptingly at the sight of the other boy’s yet unbroken nasal bone, he decided to admit defeat and introduce himself to the stranger first. He would be a gentleman as his mother had taught him and overlook his conversation partner’s plainly rude vagueness.

“I’m John. John Simcoe.” He had always hated his middle name anyway. Especially now that it reminded him not of the godfather in whose honour he was named but of something entirely different.

He extended his right hand to the other boy who took it and replied: “Richard Gloucester.” Their handshake was solemn, almost as if not two boys barely past nursery age but two great dignitaries of highest importance met on a most pressing matter of state affairs.

“Tell me, John Simcoe, why are you crying?”

“My father died and now we will move away from home and-“

He sobbed, a little embarrassed of his emotions in the company of another boy who might tease him for being so girlish as to shed tears in public.

“My father is dead, too”, Richard replied sympathetically, yet with a calmness in his voice that indicated his own father’s death had passed long enough ago to let the most hurtful wounds of this doubtlessly heavy loss heal.

“You said he was close by”, John pointed out. There was something about Richard he couldn’t quite place; something oddly familiar and something else of a very different quality, a bit like the feeling of walking through a grave yard in the dark all alone as a dare.

“Yes. He is. He always is.” Richard smiled over his shoulder as if he wanted to make eye contact with someone behind him. John slowly started to believe Richard was either a little soft in the head or in the possession of knowledge he could never even hope to ascertain.

“Is that why you’re hiding?”

“Yes and- and also because I hit Jimmy Mason in the face. He mocked me. He talked badly about my father.” It felt oddly liberating to talk about it, John realised surprisedly.

“Are you ashamed of what you did?”

“A little. Because it felt so right. I- I am a monster-“  His sobbing intensified.

“You are a warrior, not a monster, John. There’s a difference.”

“And which?”

“You fought with all your heart for a cause, a just one, I think. So many other men fight for far less; for silver to line their pockets with, for the sheer show of non-existent bravery, to find themselves on the winning side of a conflict- the list goes on and on.”

John looked at his counterpart, hopeful.

“So you don’t think I’m evil?”

“No.” He hesitated for a second. “ You decided to hit the other boy, but you also decided that doing so was not right. In the end, it’s our decisions that make us who we are, the good and the bad combined. Never forget that, John Simcoe. And when you fight- and you might have to fight once you are grown up, never do so without a cause.”

Richard gave him a bright smile and pointed at the sky.

“Look, John! This one’s shaped like a ship!”

John looked up; the cloud was shaped like a ship indeed. If he looked very closely, perhaps he could even spy her captain…

He wanted to say something to Richard, but when he turned, the boy was no longer there. No trail in the grass behind him, no sound of feet running away- no- no nothing. Richard couldn’t have disappeared. Perhaps he was playing a game?

“Richard? Richard?” John cried out playfully, expecting his new found comrade would jump from behind the dilapidated remainder of an ancient castle wall any second.

“Where are you?” This time, his voice sounded a little afraid.

The afternoon turned into early evening, the blue cloud-scattered sky to a rich canvas of purple and pink speckled with grey and white, but Richard remained untraceable. He was gone as if he never had existed. Had he dreamt all this up in his mind? Was he making up stories again? Mamma told him not to.

 

_I met a boy, Richard was he,_

_Came to play in the castle with me_

_Now he is gone I don’t know where_

_Where is he gone he’s no longer there._

 

But Richard had touched his shoulder and everything. He had talked to him. In this moment, he solemnly vowed to himself never to tell anyone about Richard.

He climbed on the back of his pony and made his way home, shaken and confused.

 

 

The man looked in the mirror. Who was he? _What_ was he? He tried to find traces of the round-cheeked seven-year-old in his features. Nothing.

He remembered his mother when he came home that day he punched the other little bastard whose name had slipped his memory in the face. She had been livid and he had cried because she had shouted at him. She was dead now; just like his father and Percy and his grandparents.

Nobody would ever shout at him again.

The silence of the room frightened him. No gunshots, no men crying out in pain, not even the busy low backdrop murmur of Rivington’s guests.

Just to fight the silence ( _or is there more to it than that?_ ), he punched the small looking glass, causing it to shatter with a loud cracking noise, its shards scattering across the dresser it had stood on and onto the floor.

Withdrawing his hand, he cut himself on one sharp edge of glass still clinging to the frame.

Blood ran down his hand to his cuff in a small, yet steadily flowing rivulet where it stained the pristinely white shirt underneath his banyan.

Should he not yelp with pain or try and staunch the blood flow?

Instead, he watched with the concentrated intrigue of a scientist how the red liquid kept welling up from underneath his skin until it coagulated, closing the wound. The cut hadn’t been deep.

_“You are a warrior, not a monster, John. There’s a difference.”_

In stories, the monsters always howled in pain when they were slain by the true-hearted young warrior. The warrior never even shed a tear, however badly he was wounded.

Or was it the other way around? He could not remember, the days when last somebody had read a story of that kind to him had been ended abruptly in the seventh year of his life.

And what were creatures like dragons to him anyway when a certain continental dragoon and his unshaven associate still roamed free? Monster or not, he had something to fight for.

Suddenly bored ( _bored?_ ) with watching his blood, he reached for the largest shard on the floor and picked it up. He could not quite explain why, but having something to busy his hands with calmed his restless fingers.

Instinctively holding the fragment up to his face, the reflection of his eye greeted him.

He was about to put the shard down again ( _what did you expect (_ or hope? _) to find?_ ), but in the same instant he noticed the eye in the broken remnant of the looking-glass was darker, different in shape and had a pronounced sadness ( _or was it disappointment?_ ) in its stare. The eye that stared back at him was not his.

He blinked and staring back at ( _or into?_ ) the shard again, he found nothing but the piercing icy blue of his own eyes widened with shock.

Whatever he had just seen wasn’t real. Perhaps something was wrong with the brandy he had had earlier. His mind was tricking him, just as back then when he had convinced himself as a child that his imaginary playmate called Richard was real.

Angrily, he hurled the shard against the wall where it smashed into even smaller pieces.

What was he?

Who was he?

He was not sure if he meant the man whose eye had stared back at him from the sharp-edged piece of glass or the one who let himself sink to the corner of the bed, his sleeve bloodied and his head held in his hands in agitated contemplation.

_In the end, it’s our decisions that make us who we are, the good and the bad combined. Never forget that, John Simcoe..._

**Author's Note:**

> Doing some research on Simcoe, I stumbled across the fact that the historical Simcoe's birthplace, where he indeed lived until shortly after his father's death, and Fotheringhay Castle, where Richard III was born, are less than three miles apart from each other (using modern-day roads, of course).  
> This effectively started the whole thing off alongside the fact that Simcoe has in the past reminded me at times of Shakespeare's Richard III (framing people for crimes they didn't commit, intelligent yet short-sighted, not shy of resorting to violence, somewhat complacent and self-righteous etc.). 
> 
> Of course, Shakespeare's play by the same name (written during the reign of the grand-daughter of the man who beat Richard III at Bosworth Field and ascended the throne as Henry VII of England) and the historical Richard III are two entirely different people/personas, please don't get me wrong here.
> 
> Richard introduces himself as "Richard Gloucester" in dependence on his title as Duke of Gloucester prior to becoming king.
> 
>  
> 
> Digging a little deeper into the realms of coincidence, some more interesting parallels between Richard III of England and John Graves Simcoe came up:
> 
> Richard III was born in 1452 and John Graves Simcoe in 1752, although it has to be said that their birthdays, much as this would have been wonderful for my story, do not coincide; Simcoe was born on 25th February and Richard III on 2nd October. 
> 
> Both were roughly the same age when their fathers died, 7 and 8 respectively. Both fathers were 49 years old at the time of their death.
> 
> Richard spent his childhood in the care of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who from 1470-1471 held the office of Lord High Admiral of England. Simcoe's godfather (Admiral Samuel Graves, from whom Simcoe received his middle name) was a navy officer.
> 
> Both Richard III and Simcoe went on to marry the ward or daughter of said men. TURN bonus: Richard III's wife's given name was Anne, which comes quite close to "Anna". 
> 
> Simcoe's wedding day and the obit of Richard of York, father of Richard III, fall on the same day (30th December). 
> 
> There was no way I could leave these coincidences alone. I hope you liked what you read, if you did (or even if you don't), feel free to let me know, critique is always welcome!


End file.
